2010 Research Grant Awards

Throughout its 12-year history, the Scleroderma Foundation has always placed emphasis on the importance of research. As a part of the Foundation’s mission, research-related initiatives continue to be the Foundation’s largest single budgeted expense each year. It is the ultimate hope of the Foundation that with each proposal funded, the world is one step closer to finding a cure.The Research Grant Funding Program, established in 1989, has awarded funding to 193 proposals on scleroderma since its inception.

Individual and corporate donations, coupled with chapter and support group revenues, allowed the Foundation to continue its longstanding tradition of funding research initiatives by awarding $1,050,000 in 2010 to seven worthy researchers.

Thirty-one grant applications were received, reviewed, and selected according to merit by the Foundation’s Peer Review Committee. The Peer Review process, guided by N.I.H. protocol and criteria, ensured Foundation dollars were put towards the strongest research proposals on scleroderma. This year’s research grants were awarded to four established and three new investigators.

The Foundation’s Research Grant Program is vital to not only advancing the state of research on scleroderma, but also motivating new researchers to take an interest in the disease. Carol Feghali-Bostwick, Ph.D., researcher and Vice Chair of the Foundation’s Board of Directors, states, “Our understanding of scleroderma has increased dramatically over the past decade, thanks to the continued support of the Scleroderma Foundation’s Research Grant Funding Program.”

The two highest scoring research proposals received the Foundation’s Marta Marx and Mark Flapan awards. The Marta Marx Eradication of Scleroderma Award, funded by bequests from Marta Marx, who had scleroderma, and her brother Rudolph Juhl, was awarded to Eileen Hsu, M.D., of the University of Pittsburgh, Pa. The Mark Flapan Award, so named in honor of the late psychologist and scleroderma patient Mark Flapan, was received by Harrison Farber, M.D., of Boston University School of Medicine.

The Walter A. Coyle Memorial Research Grant Award, made possible through the generosity of the New England Chapter of the Scleroderma Foundation, was presented to researcher Andreea Bujor, M.D., M.S., of Boston University. This is the second research grant award the New England Chapter has sponsored since the debut of the Chapter Grant Funding program in 2009.

Read on to learn more about the seven selected researchers.